Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt

Born 1912 in Hamburg, Germany

Died 1994 in Caracas, Venezuela

Gego was an artist and sculptor whose work peaked in the 1960s with geometric abstraction and kinetic art. After studying engineering and architecture at the Hochschule für Technik (University of Applied Sciences) Stuttgart (1932–38), she fled Germany in 1939 and moved to Venezuela, where she worked as an architect and furniture designer during the 1940s. In 1956, in Caracas, she created her first three-dimensional works. Between 1959 and 1967 she visited the United States to participate in various workshops (Treitel-Gratz metal fabricators, New York) and to experiment in lithography and other mediums. Her watercolors, spatial installations, engravings, and paper weavings—which use line as the fundamental element—reveal her investigations into structure, space, transparency, and viewer interaction. While her works made between 1957 and 1969 were based on equidistant, parallel lines, her “Reticuláreas” (Networks), “Troncos” (Trunks), and “Esferas” (Spheres) consist of crossed lines creating net-like structures. From 1976 onward she abandoned preconceived concepts in her series “Dibujos sin Papel” (Drawings without Paper) and “Bichitos” (Small Bugs). From 1958 to 1977 Gego committed herself to teaching. In 1979 she received the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas de Venezuela.